Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Story Time’s Over Kindergartners—Time To Write Expository Essays!

The testing
mania that has dominated education reform for the past decade has only
indirectly affected kindergartners (the federal and state tests do not start
until second grade). However, because the stakes for schools are so high (low
test scores can mean reconstitution, mass firings of teachers, forced take over
by a charter school), curriculum development and implementation at all grade
levels are now influenced by the tests. At some schools, this means a reduction
or elimination of arts, music, physical education and even science to make room
for math and English support or for test preparation. It may also include
practice bubble-in tests at the kindergarten and first grade levels.

At virtually
all levels of K-12 education it has reduced the potential for learning
activities that are spontaneous, fun, creative and rooted in students’
interests and experiences. While this may prepare children for a future life at
a desk in a cubicle (perhaps one reason why the Gates Foundation has spent
millions of dollars to promote the Common Core Standards (CCS), it also
contributes to their alienation from and disdain for school and learning, as
well as the increased stress and anxiety many teachers are noticing in their
students.

Presently,
despite the testing mania, kindergarten still retains some of the games, song,
dance and other playful, lighthearted activities we remember from our own
kindergarten experiences. This may soon change with the adoption of Common Core
(CCS), which will supposedly put all children on the same learning track as
others at their grade level, including the lower elementary grades.

On the
surface this might seem like a common sense way to raise the bar and improve
learning outcomes (based on the bogus assumption that teachers across the
country do whatever they damned well please in the classroom and that there is
little or no standardization across grade level). However, as Susan Ohanian
shows in her recent critique of the video “From the Page to the Classroom:
Implementing the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in English Language Arts
and Literacy,” the CCS are incredibly rigid and
stultifying and could have a detrimental effect on teaching and children’s
attitudes toward school and learning. For example, even at the K-5 grades, the
CCS require a 50-50 mix of fiction and nonfiction reading, with writing
grounded in the texts, with no narrative writing or personal opinions permitted.

When my favorite group
of second graders were studying a caterpillar’s transformation, some of the
kids wrote me exuberant notes along with drawings about what they were
learning. I didn’t check these notes for text complexity or topic sentences.
Yes, some kindergartners are ready to read. But many children are harmed
when, in the name of rigor and complexity, what was once second grade is now
kindergarten. We don’t expect all babies to walk or talk at the same age.
Why do we think five- and six-year-olds should be standardized in their
learning—and shoved as a pack into more rigor? (Look up the definition and ask
yourself if that’s what you want for a child you love.)

Professor of Curriculum
and Teaching at Hunter College and author of numerous books on children’s
literacy development, Sandra Wilde worries about the pressures on
kindergartners. She suggests, “Read the book, watch the butterflies develop,
act it out, but skip the close reading of long sentences. Fingerpaint butterfly
pictures instead. What’s the hurry?”